ind me, and I was
troubled by no obligation to save him worry. This strange man
interested me, he held my family in high regard, and I was well
satisfied to see more of him. So I fixed my heels on the rung of my
chair, folded my hands in my lap, sat up very straight, and watched him
gravely. In this was the one grudge that I long bore against the
Professor--that he baited me as he did, played with my child's pride,
and with my innocent connivance vented his contempt on all that I held
most dear. I did not understand the covert sneer against my father.
Years have given me a broader view of life than was my father's, and at
times I can smile with Henderson Blight at the solemnity with which he
invested his judgeship, but mine is the smile of affection. With no
knowledge of the law, with a power restricted to county contracts, when
he sat on the bench in court week with his learned confrere, drew his
chin into his pointed collar, and furrowed his brow, Blackstone beside
him would have appeared a tyro in legal lore. The distinguished Judge
Malcolm! So Henderson Blight spoke of him in raillery and so he was in
truth, distinguished in his village and his valley, and as I have come
to know men of fame in larger villages and broader valleys I can still
look back to him with loving pride. Yet that day I sat complacently
with my feet on the chair-rung, regarding the Professor with growing
friendliness.

"You know my father?" I asked, seeking to draw forth more of this
agreeable flattery.

"I have not the honor," he replied. "You see I am comparatively new in
these parts--driven here, as you may suspect, by temporary adversity.
But a man with ideas, David, must some day rise above adversity. All
he needs is a field of action." He looked across the bare room and out
of the door, where the weeds were charging in masses against the very
threshold; he looked beyond them, above the wall of woods, to a small
white cloud drifting in the blue. Young as I was, I saw that in his
eyes which told me that could he reach the cloud he might set the
heavens afire, but under his hand there lay no task quite worthy of
him. "A field of action--an opportunity," he repeated meditatively.
"It's hard, David, to have all kinds of ideas and no place to use them.
When a man knows that he has it in him and----"

"Is that why Mr. Shunk calls you the Professor?" I interrupted.

Henderson Blight turned toward me a melancholy smile. "Yes," he